When you're not quite the 'Harry' Dumbledore was hoping for
by pastelchalks
Summary: Harry is found by our most dangerous, reckless and protective IMF agent, Ethan Hunt! Julia decides to take him in. Harry gets his name changed, and isn't Harry for long. How will Hogwarts take a boy-who-lived raised by loving and caring parental figures? How will they all react to a very capable Harry Potter? (Taken off of Archive of Our Own under the same name and author name)
1. Chapter 1

This situation was completely new to Ethan, as he'd never had a baby left on his front porch (temporary or not) with a letter saying he should take it in. His first instinct was to hand it over to the police who were well equipped to deal with this kind of thing. The amber alert program was more than sufficient to handle this situation, but it was that soft look from Julia that made his mind falter, in what he should really do.

Ethan was just planning on getting a full nights sleep with Julia, without any IMF mission handlers to come knocking down on his door telling him in some kind of crypt coded language that he was needed, when the doorbell rung and then there it was, a baby with a letter telling it that the baby was actually of special circumstances, and shouldn't be handed over to the custody of the state.

The look in Julia's eyes told him that in the four minutes they had been with this baby, she'd already fallen in love with it. Julia herself was sterile, and couldn't have any children after a particular accident, that she believed was just and luck, which was actually part of a coordinated attack that was meant for Ethan. Luckily she went left the situation unscathed, as the people trying to gas Ethan accidentally used the wrong chemical composition that just left her infertile.

"I'll take him in, Ethan." Her eyes were in a no-nonsense state and she cradled the infant in her arms as if she were the biological mother herself. They'd talked about adoption before, but they never got around to it, and with a baby now in their arms, this was the perfect opportunity. She hadn't seen her family for a year, only keeping contact with them through the phone line.

It would be perfectly reasonable for her to say that she was pregnant during that time, but didn't tell her mother as she was afraid of giving birth out of wedlock.

"Well… if nobody comes forth to the police to try and claim it within a week, I suppose we could claim it as our own. I have a buddy that works in a government department that could help us register the child as our biological one." Ethan's voice was steady, and he was looking intently at the child.

Ethan kissed Julia softly, then after a moment's hesitation kissed the infants forehead before sitting in a comfortable silence. Ethan stood up and told Julia that he'd be back, and he was just going down to the store to buy a few things for the baby.

Currently, they were staying in England. Ethan claimed they would just transfer to England for a year maximum, as there was a huge experimental program going on with the transport system he worked for, and if all went well, he'd even get a promotion. She'd agreed after he told her that he considered this very important to him.

They were due to go back to D.C. in just a month and now there was this baby on their hands.

The small city they had settled in, which Ethan had been assigned to taking down a local black market circuit, instantly took a liking to Ethan's easy-going persona he put on. The local grocery store had taken quite well to even, even with a few witty jokes about him being an American in the British which were taken in with good faith.

When he was checking out the bag of nappies and a carton of goats milk this got the attention of the person who usually served Ethan. He smiled wildly as he insinuated what buying these two products could mean.

"You did the dirty and have a little kiddo, eh?" The cashier smiles wildly and expresses how happy he is for them. "Man, I know I've technically got no credible experience, but I have two nieces and oh boy, they are such a handful." Ethan nods along and keeps the conversation going. When its time for him to go, he gives the cashier a hefty tip and starts making the jog back to the place him and Julia were currently staying.

* * *

The infants blanket it was wrapped up in was embroidered with the word "Harry" and Julia assumed that was the name that the biological mother must have decided for him. That would have to change, Julia wanted all ties with the infants past gone if they were going to pull this off. He would be named something not too far off from Harry, but not close enough to make an immediate connection.

It had been two weeks and there had been nothing about a missing child.

Julia messaged Ethan and he confirmed that by the end of the month the paperwork would fall through and Adrian Meade-Hunt was officially a baby born to Julia Meade and Ethan Hunt. Ethan had done all the paperwork himself, and without the knowledge of any other agent in the IMF, that a baby anonymously popped up into the system among thousands of new babies that were being born every day. Since the baby already seemed to be a few months old, they had to set the birth date back a few months.

Adrian Meade-Hunt would never ever get to know his proper family, and its like they kidnapped him, no matter how morally just it was, Julia, realised, but reasoned that growing up in the state system would have been far worse.

* * *

"Hey, mum," Julia's smooth voice goes through the phone. Her mother has been getting phone calls from Julia every week since they had come to live in Northern London, but Julia had just called yesterday, so why would she be calling the very next day?

"You know that I'm coming home at the end of this month, right?" Julia makes sure her mother knows whats going on so far. Her mother nods, and almost forgets she's on the phone but catches herself and mumbles a quick 'yes' to Julia, who seemed satisfied by the response.

"Julia, whats wrong?" Her mother finally asks, she already knows that Julia is coming home at the end of the month, so why would she be reminding her about it… unless something had changed.

"I've been dishonest with you… I have a child. His name is Adrian. He's two months old now." Julia quickly confesses, and for a while, there's a silence through the phone. Julia's afraid her mother is beyond mad that she could not tell her about this for what… if Adrian was two months old, and a pregnancy was nine months, then she would have been lying about this for eleven months. Almost the entire time she had been in Northern England.

"The father?" Her mother finally sighs into the phone.

"Ethan." Julia is reluctant and pained to give these answers, but this lie would be one the whole world would have to believe.

"As soon as you step foot back in this country, I want to meet him. The whole family is going to meet him." Julia has a sigh of relief but sucks in her breath again when her mother resumes speaking.

"Don't think you're off the hook young lady, you can't just hide something that big for so long." Julia nodded numbly before hanging up the mobile-phone.

* * *

"Told your family?" Ethan asks her for confirmation. They're at the airport, standing before the private jet. Julia didn't know how Ethan could afford to hire a private jet, but he did work for the department of transportation after all.

She nods, looking at Adrian, who is cradled in her arms. Ethan smiles comfortingly before climbing aboard the private jet, with her following. He's carrying their luggage, and for a pair who have been living in England for the last year, they only have two bags of luggage to bring back.

She knows after the long flight, the moment she steps off the plane, there will be a welcoming committee of her entire family, even though her family promised they wouldn't come. One of her younger cousins are probably going to be holding up a bold obnoxious sign that says 'WELCOME BACK JULIA' and then scrawled purposely to look like a last minute addition 'and Ethan'.

Adrian sleeps through the entire flight, and this time when they get off the plane and go through customs, there is an assistant there to take their luggage. He mumbles something to Ethan that sounds suspiciously like 'Agent' but catches himself once Ethan shoots him a knowing look.

As expected, waiting on the other side is the entirety of Julia's family, sans her grandparents who were probably too old to come all the way to the airport from where the elderly care facility is located.

It seems like her mother hadn't told anybody else about the new addition to the family, as everybody seemed to freeze in shock when they caught sight of the baby. It's her sister that makes the first move, and she walks over looking at the child wrapped in a silky burrito like fashion.

Julia smiles uncertainly, and her sister softly speaks.

"Whats his name?" She gives gentle smile.

"Adrian Meade-Hunt." The infant is fast asleep, but even so, her sister can begin to draw up similarities between the new parents and the baby.

"Can I carry him?" Julia nods, and her sister takes the infant into a gentle hold, cradling it while supporting the head. "He's beautiful. If he gets any of Ethan's looks, he's going to be a charmer." Julia can't help but agree.

"Ethan and I plan to get married soon, probably within the next few years." Julia breaks the news to her family, and most of them are happy for her, except her uncle, who was extremely catholic and not very happy that Julia decided to have a child out of wedlock. The rest of the family is charmed by the baby, and they all agree that a new addition to the family was a surprise, but a welcome one.

Ethan and Julia soon go to their little family home, and Ethan immediately orders things required for a baby's nursery. The local 'Baby's R Us' had everything ready for them to collect the next morning, and in the meantime, the baby just had to sleep with Ethan and Julia in the large king bed.

Setting up the nursery the next day wasn't too difficult, but they both had jobs to get back to. Ethan's manager apparently decided he was needed back in the very next day, and Julia had to go back and reapply for her nursing job at the hospital, chances were she was going to get the same job and position she had when she left, and be welcomed back with open arms.

Somehow, from Ethan's apparent surplus of money he just happened to inherit from his parents, he had enough money to hire a nanny that specialised in infant aged babies. She was there now every day except Thursday, Saturday and Sunday's.

All days that at least one of them had as a day off from their job.

* * *

Adrian was turning two, and Ethan just marvelled at the fact that he had managed to gain what seemed like the normal semblance of a family, and how Adrian managed to grow pretty normally so far, but if Ethan had any say in it, Adrian would be raised to defend himself. There was no way in hell that he would let his kid be raised without knowing anything in the martial arts.

Maybe he'd even teach a few of his vital skills to Adrian, just a few tricks of the trade that he'd learnt and picked up during his extensive time at the IMF.

Adrian would be none the wiser, probably just assuming that it was casual father-son bonding, or that the lessons in self-defence and the martial arts were just one of his father's quirks.

Ethan soon got straight on it, teaching his son the basics of both reading and writing in over six languages. Adrian too fluent, but could communicate the bare basics in those languages as well and this was all by the time he had turned six years old.

His accent was a little off, and you could tell that Adrian wasn't a native speaker, but these were all things that could be perfected later on. The very base of most martial arts was taught, and Adrian could take on a fully grown man by the time he turned seven.

That was around the time Ethan had gotten the call.

"Are you one Mr Ethan Hunt?" The caller asks, and Ethan immediately replies with the pre-prepared response. "We would like to offer you and your family an all-expense paid trip to Australia. Offer ends soon."

That confirmed it for Ethan, it was the IMF then calling and by how the call went, they wanted to meet in the nearby seven eleven store down the road from his current residence.

It's his handler that meets him there and tells him about a new program.

"We've been made away you're a father. Congratulations." The formality doesn't hold any real warmth behind it, and even if he was congratulating Ethan, Adrian was born seven years ago. A blank stare from Ethan makes the man cut to the chase.

"Don't they just grow up so fast…" The man grins and leaves behind a thick heavy duty book. Ethan can already tell that its just a screen inside a bookcase and it could either mean one of two things, he was being called back into field work or there was a discreet briefing for him.

Ethan grabs the book and wordlessly leaves the store, discreetly checking around that nobody was following him.

When he gets home, the briefing of the situation was so much worse than he could have ever imagined. The IMF is starting a new program to train and prepare future agents before they're even old enough to decide for themselves. It would be discreet, disguised under the guise that the children were just going to a prestigious school that was extremely hard to apply and get into.

Ethan looked over the proposed curriculum that catered to those around Adrain's own age, and agreed that it would be pretty useful for Adrian to learn all these skills that would get him up to par with a professional field agent by the time they graduated the program, which just took however long it took that specific child to reach that skill point.

The graduation rate was an estimated age range from 16-19-year-olds, and they didn't have to be an agent if they didn't want to by the end of it all, it was just preparing them for the route which they'd most likely be inclined to take due to the familiarity that the IMF would have become by then.

Part of Ethan told him that he shouldn't bring Adrian into this life, and another part of Ethan told himself that just by living with Adrian, he'd already had brought him into the life of being an agent for a government run agency.

He put down Adrian meads-hunt as a confirmed student through the discreet computer that had been sent to him and got ready to make the call that Adrian had been accepted into a prestigious school of the Integrity of Moral Form.

Julia was so joyed that her sons potential had been recognised by a prestigious school, no matter how unheard or underground the school was.


	2. Chapter 2

"Where's mum?" Is the first thing that comes out of Adrain's mouth when he walks into the kitchen, at six am preparing himself for school. Ethan looked at him sheepishly.

"She had to take the night shift, there is a shortage of nurses right now, and you know your mother, she'd never pass up the chance to help somebody in need." Adrian understands but is also a bit annoyed that nobody woke him up to tell him that, even if it was at one in the morning, he didn't care.

He loves to see his mother off when she leaves in the morning for work.

He's about to leave for school, when his father throws him a familiar cool object. Adrain catches it with ease, it's his gun, and he almost forgot to take it with him, what an idiot move. Usually he wasn't so sleepy, but something made him restless last night.

He couldn't figure out for the life of him why he had trouble sleeping, as July 31st had no real significance to him.

But his birthday, according to his mother and father, was August fifth, so that may of had something to do with it.

Adrian slips the gun back onto his ankle holster. He'd been going to this weird underground school for IMF children ever since he was six years old, and he was now nine.

Maybe he'd get his first mission assigned to him, with a senior agents supervision of course. It would be just a little lick of experience for him, in an extremely simple mission that shouldn't be too important, and it wasn't like the world was going to be laying on his shoulders during it.

* * *

The day was moving much slower than anything Adrain had experienced in his life. His class was going through a lecture on bomb defusing. The instructor then brought in gas bombs that would at most knock out the whole room into unconsciousness, and gave each and every one of them a gas mask, incase if anything went south. Adrian was third in line to try and defuse it.

When it was his turn, he managed to not only defuse it, but set a new record for the class. When he was going through the motions of cutting wires and turning screws, he didn't even use any time to think, just his intuition in the back of his mind told him what to cut and what to rewire.

Apparently it worked, but he had been told not to be so reckless with important situations.

Adrian understood that the implications of blindly following his instinct wouldn't be able to save him if he didn't cut the correct wire in a future situation. The teacher was proud but reprimanding. Soon, permission slips were handed out to bring home to their parents. It wasn't the traditional way of handing out a school permission slip, and instead of paper being given out, each student was given three small marbles.

Before the end of the day, there was an announcement of a new student being transferred from a facility in London. The instructor walked in with a lean 9-year-old girl. She was beautiful in Adrain's eyes, and he for the first time in his life, was hoping that he wouldn't be assigned a mission with his best friend, Colin, and instead wanted to try his chances with the new initiate.

"Granger, Hermione." The girl said, in a clear voice. Each word was perfectly annunciated in a perfected American accent, and Adrian almost thought she could've been raised here in America. Then the initiate giggled, before speaking in her natural voice, which had an upperclass english lilt to it.

"So where were you born?" Asks Colin, curiously. Tommy, immediately from the other side of the room yells.

"England, you idiot!" Hermione rolls her eyes, and cuts in, correcting Tommy.

"Actually I was born in Paris, France." Collin laughs and sticks his tongue out at Tommy's flustered face.

"Yeah, I was the one born in London," Adrian admits to the rest of them, Collin laughs even harder and Tommy's face goes red. This continues when Collin tells them that he was born in Bangkok, Thailand.

"Wh-what?! But you're not asian!" Tommy tries to fight off Collin's claim.

"Actually my mother is asian, I just happened to not be born with prominent Asian features." Tommy's had enough, and waits by the door with his bag over his shoulder for the end of school bell to go, which is due any minute now. Hermione looks around in confusion. She eyes their formal uniform, fitted with a white button down, ironed black slacks and navy tie with their navy jumper.

"I thought American's didn't wear school uniforms?" Adrian and Collin chuckle at her confusion.

"That's only the public schools. Well this facility is actually government run, but we're a special case. They grant us a tenfold budget because technically we're an extension of the intelligence and defence forces." Adrian shrugs, and this uniform wasn't only just for show, it was kevlar lined and weighed down so that each and every initiate was stronger built up their personal strength just by wearing the clothing.

The initiate class was actually quite small, and the department only ran a few classes, each a few years younger than Adrain's own initiate class.

Adrain's class consisted of nine children, and each of them had at least one parent who worked for the IMF agency. In Collin's case, both his parents were senior analysts, who met in the office one time in an overseas IMF office.

"So what's brought you to this side of the pond?" Adrian asks her, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Dad's MI6, mum's IMF. Once mum heard about this experimental program for child agents, she decided it would be good for me to learn how to properly protect myself." Hermione shrugged again. "I've already been to a few private lessons over at MI6, but none of them are really course based."

Adrain nods along.

"So who's your mum?" He asks, maybe he'd know her. Hermione waves him down.

"Oh, you wouldn't know her. Jean Granger, International Affairs." She's right, Harry doesn't recognise the name, but if she was in international affairs, he probably wouldn't. There was a high chance she was working overseas anyway.

"Your dad?" Adrain can begin to tell she's getting annoyed, as she doesn't know anything about him yet.

"Junior Head of finance."

"What about-" Hermione interrupts him.

"Your turn." She looks at him expectantly, with a hard, unimpressed stare. Adrain has the decency to look sheepish, chuckling nervously.

"My mum's a nurse… my dad is Ethan Hunt." He doesn't even need to explain who Ethan Hunt is, because apparently every single IMF agent knows about Ethan, and by extension Hermione knew. Her jaw drops and eyes widen.

"The retired field agent-"

"Yup."

"The same one who-"

"One in the same."

* * *

"How was school today, kiddo?" Julia asks him. They're walking home together from the front of the school which Adrian went to school. Adrain's happily skipping along.

"There was a new student. Transferred from a school in England. Her name's Hermione, and she's amazing." Adrain thinks back on Hermione's little defence demonstration, remembering how she skilfully fatally wounded the training dummies.

"In love?" Julia jokes, Adrain doesn't respond, except for sighing deeply. Julia's still in her nursing uniform, due to having just gotten off her shift to pick up Adrian. Adrain begins to giggle, somewhat finding Julia's accusation of him being in love absolutely hilarious. Julia begins to chuckle along as well. They sober up, and this time Julia speaks again, in a serious tone.

"Adrain," She waits until his undivided attention is on her. "Your father and I have spoken… and we're deciding to get married." Julia eye's Adrian for his reaction. It's unsurprisingly positive. His mouth breaks into a grin He's been waiting for his parents to finally tie the knot, even though they've been considering getting married for years.

"The engagement party is on Saturday night. My parents, your Uncle Rick and Aunt Melissa will be there." Adrain's eyes brighten a little, although he's currently the only child in entire family, he knows that Aunt Melissa is expecting, but the child wouldn't be anywhere near his own age. It was enough to placate him for the moment.

"Aunt Melissa?" Visits between Julia's side of the family were rare, as most of Julia's family didn't live anywhere nearby to where their little family of three had resided.

"Yeah." Aunt Melissa was extremely nice towards Adrian, which had quickly placed her in extremely good graces in Adrain's books. It wasn't though that meant much, as anybody in his books were extremely temporarily placed, except for his parents. Any decisions he made based on people's character could change in an instant, although if he trusted people more and had known them for a longer period of time, it would be likely that he'd need more evidence against their case to change how he judged them.

"That's great, mum. Can't wait, honestly." The smile on his face is evident by the tone of his voice.

"Are you sure you want to? It'll be pretty late at night…" Adrain tilts his head and reconsiders, and nods again firmly. Of course he wants to go, he can't wait for his parents to get married. The wedding is going to a pretty memorable event for him. He'd get to put all those formality skills into use he'd learned at school.

They turn around the corner and happen to already be home. Ethan seems to already have gotten off of work early today, as shown by the fact that he's sitting on a barstool at the kitchen counter staring immensely at his laptop. To anybody else, it would look like he's immersed in live statistics of traffic conditions along the east coast of the state, but to Adrain, he can tell that Ethan's in the middle of decoding some cleverly hidden message.

Julia takes one look at his screen, rolls her eyes and gives Ethan a playful kiss on his forehead. He looks up from his 'work' and smiles, taking in the scene of his little family together. He's extremely proud of the life he's managed to build up for himself outside of work. It's everything he could've wanted.

"How was the day?" He asks his fiancé and son. Adrain perks up at being involved in a conversation.

"Today was amazing! There was a new student, she's transferred from England. Hermione Granger." Adrain gushes on about the new girl, carefully filtering out any mentions relating to the fact that she comes from an MI6 department in the UK, and avoiding any talk on actual schoolwork, instead casually insinuating that Hermione was just gifted.

"Gifted? Well, I hope so, she does go to your special school of yours after all."


	3. Chapter 3

"Remember, you can't say anything to my mum!" Adrian reminds Hermione. They're walking back to Adrian's house together from the institute under the guise that Hermione's coming to do homework with Adrian. They would've gone to Hermione's place but Adrian's home happened to be closer, probably due to the fact that the IMF housing department liked their best field agent - retired or otherwise - to live pretty close to headquarters.

Hermione rolls her eyes and playfully pushes Adrian off the sidewalk and into the grass.

"I know, I know! You've told me at least six times in the past what - four minutes we've been walking? I can speak thirteen languages fluently, I think I can handle your oblivious mum." Adrian groans before picking himself off the ground.

"I'm not kidding. One accidental mention out of context and dad would kill me." His eyes are serious. They continue walking down the path in a comfortable silence. Hermione starts to hum a familiar tune which Adrian couldn't quite place properly. She asks him something out of the blue.

"Do you ever think of becoming… something other than an agent when you turn eighteen?" Adrain furrows his eyebrows.

"No, of course not… Although being in the Navy wouldn't be that bad I guess." Hermione nods in agreement but inputs her own opinion in the conversation.

"I'm thinking of going to university though… I know for sure I'm going to be a field agent or some kind of Analyst for the IMF, but I just want to give myself a few options. Just in case." Hermione looks determined, but a bit unsure on the side. Adrian can completely understand where she's coming from. He laughs a little.

"Yeah… I'm not sure my mum would be too impressed if I told her that I got a job like dads. She'd be thinking I was working in the department of traffic!" There's a mutual light laughter that doesn't really hold in much joy, as Adrain is reminded of his deep desire to tell his mother of everything that he's done and everything he's doing. He really wants to tell his mother everything and anything that she wants to know.

Adrain doesn't want his mother to be proud of his worthless 'Mathematics Academic Awards' that the school hands out to every other student to give a non-aware parent some sort of coverage to hide what they're really doing at the institution. Somethings he just really needed his mother to know about. Like when he perfected nine accents from ten languages that he knew how to speak fluently. There was just something in Japanese that couldn't quite get down.

Just around the corner stood his parents house. Adrain basked in the warm feeling the sight gave him. Hermione hums thoughtfully.

"Number three it was, wasn't it?" Adrian nods. She walks ahead of him and rings the doorbell. Immediately the door opens and there stands Julia, with a cooking apron on. She's obviously been preparing for the engagement party that Ethan and she are hosting the day after tomorrow at their home.

"You must be Hermione! I'm Julia, Adrian's mother. Actually… where is Adrian?" Julia asks politely to Hermione. In turn, Hermione sighs and gestures down the street to where Adrian is stood dumbly for almost no reason. Julia rolls her eyes and yells out.

"Adrian! Come on in, your tea's going to get cold!" That snapped Adrian out of it, and he came running over with an unnatural speed for a nine-year-old. Hermione huffs when he gets to the door. The three of them walked in, Harry being slightly disappointed when there was, in fact, no tea in sight.

Julia laughs in good nature. "Of course I wouldn't have made tea for you yet, I had no idea how long you were going to take to walk home. In fact, I'll put the kettle on now." She fills up the kettle with about a litre of water and puts it on the electric kettle station.

"Hermione," She calls out "how do you take your tea?" Hermione doesn't miss a beat and answers right away.

"Black. One-ninth milk, no sugar." Julia sets out the three teacups while Hermione and Adrian set out their homework for the day. They're doing a unit on geography in rural India. Once the tea is made and served, Julia resumes baking. Julia finishes baking around five in the afternoon, and she sits with the two children, probably hoping to aid them in their homework. When she finds that she knows close to nothing about rural India. Instead, she makes conversation.

"So, Hermione, what part of England are you from?" Hermione tilts her head.

"Hampstead, why?" Julia fiddles with her fingers.

"We had Adrian in Kensington. Pretty close to Hampstead, don't you think?" Hermione nods, then scribbles something down onto her map of rural India, as if just remembering an important note about a certain village. Hermione narrows her eyes. Something about the way that Julia says that she 'had' Adrian told her that it wasn't the full truth. Adrian didn't seem to think anything of it.

Hermione's mobile phone goes off. It's a message from her dad. She's due back home. She taps her fingers against the table a few times before gathering her things and telling Julia and Adrian that she's got to go and that she had fun. Adrian gives her a platonic hug, but Hermione lingers a few seconds too long before returning the hug.

Julia says she's welcome back any time, and then Hermione leaves.

* * *

Hermione's been gone for a few hours, and Adrian furrows his eyebrows. She tapped him a message in Morse code, but it had baffled him. Although the message was pretty clear, and he translated it in his mind quickly, he still didn't know what it meant. 'She's lying to you about Kensington.' are the exact words that had been sent through the morse code, but Adrian still couldn't wrap his head around any possible meaning of the phrase.

Why would Julia even need to lie to him at all? Adrian looks back up to the clock. It's almost seven. Fourteen minutes until his father would be back home. While his mother is preoccupied in the kitchen, Adrain reckons he could quickly sift through any documents he has regarding about the phrase that Hermione told him was a lie. In under a minute he finds a big file labelled 'Kensington 1997'. That's the year he was born. The file is full of official documents with his birth certificate - August 5th, 2.7 kilograms, Royal Brompton Hospital - and his first ever passport.

There are even a few things regarding custody arrangements since his parents weren't married, but nothing that could prove anything his mother has said as a lie. Adrian keeps note of everything in his mind but otherwise moves on after promptly putting all the files back. He'd look into it further at a later date.

* * *

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring forth a suspected underground cult into the light. There isn't any warrant for a police search, so this is where the IMF comes in. Around the Washington D.C. area, there have been a series of reports allegedly accusing a family, the Calante's, of taking in children and abusing them to a point of a mental recluse. Your job would be to go undercover to try and attract their attention, and reveal what they're doing to these children."

Adrian and Hermione watched the holographic screen in rapt attention. They were finally being assigned their very first mission. This one was, in fact, a _real_ situation that they had to handle with the utmost amount of care. A single mistake, and the entire mission could go south.

The initiate class handler looks at them expectantly.

"Yes! I accept - um I mean, WE accept!" Hermione blurts out, rather impulsively and embarrassingly. She blushes before shutting her mouth. Adrian gives her an unimpressed stare, followed by telling their handler in a more formal way, that he accepts the mission. Their handler briefs them in on the rest of the details and sends them on their way.

The first thing to set up the mission was to move into the house that the IMF housing department had set them up with. They'd need to do it on Sunday around late morning to noon so that there would be more witnesses to back up their story of them moving into the neighbourhood for the first time. They'd be situated at that home for approximately four months, which is how long the timetabling department of the IMF had estimated the time that it would take, taking into consideration the context of the situation and the amount of experience each agent would have.

The Agents that had been placed with them to act as their parents were new recruits, both in their mid to late twenties.

The situation had already been gone over with Julia. She was informed that for a few months, Adrian would be in an experimental educational program that would provide unique learning experiences for him. She reluctantly agreed but told Adrian to write her every single week.

Adrian, too excited for words, was extremely pleased with his mother's decision to let him take part in the program and thanked her dearly.

"Are you sure you don't need to pack anything?" Julia asks Adrain, making sure her son was going to be fine for the entire time he'd be away at this weird educational program. Adrain nods, paying no mind. The engagement party was tomorrow, which Adrian would be able to attend, but he'd have to leave be at the designated drop off area for the program by seven am, the following morning.

Which meant if he had to pack anything, he probably should have packed in advance. Adrain once again explains the situation, despite Julia already having had this conversation.

"Mum - the people who are setting up this program have specifications that we arrive with absolutely nothing. I know I'll be able to write to you at least once a week though! Don't worry about me, Dad knows the person organising it, so if you have any doubts, you can ask dad about it." Julia hums, weaving her fingers through his smooth locks. Adrian looks her in the eyes.

' _Funny'_ , Julia thinks, ' _those eyes look almost exactly like Ethan's'_. Well, the colour looked like Ethan's own eyes, but the shape was all hers. For a child they just adopted, he looked suspiciously like how their own biological child would. Either an extremely lucky coincidence or… Julia decided not to let her mind wander too far.

* * *

Adrain's in his room, almost dying of boredom. There's only so much calculus he can take, and when he's only nine-years-old while trying to finish the assigned homework while there's an engagement party for his parents taking place downstairs? He's not so sure he's going to be able to finish it by the due date - tomorrow before dispatching for his mission.

Somebody knocks on the door. Adrian can tell by the weight of each rapt knock, the thud of footprints prior to the knock and the time allotted between each knock, that it's his father.

"Come in," Adrian calls out, without moving his eyes from the paper. Fingers still filling with the sharpened 2B pencil in-between his right thumb and index.

"You know you can come on down and enjoy the party. Your Uncle Rick wants to know where his favourite nephew is." Ethan smiles at him, cautiously. He knows that Adrian's building up quite a bit of stress before his very first mission. Although Ethan's a little uncomfortable himself that his only son's first mission isn't even going to be a mock, or a simulated mission in a controlled environment, Ethan still has confidence that Adrian has what it takes to pull it off.

Adrian groans.

"You mean his _only_ nephew!" Ethan chuckles.

"Not for long, you know your Aunt Malissa is expecting." Adrian dramatically turns around to face his father.

"Yep, that's all he needs, _more_ nibblings." They both laugh light-heartedly, then Adrian turns back to his homework.

"You know, you could relax and enjoy yourself downstairs. I'll vouch for you on the homework thing." Adrian raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment on the clear ploy to try to get him to socialise with his relatives, to prove to his relatives that his parents didn't raise a socially inept child. Adrian takes the bait anyway, being not one to decline to get out of doing homework.

He quickly scrambles down the stairs, spotting his mother by the refrigerator. Adrian playfully latches onto her back, yelling out a large 'boo!' in an attempt to start a little ramble with his mother. She gasps in an exaggerated fake shock, almost making it comical.

"I wonder who's on my back." Julia questions, rather pointlessly. She turns around quick enough for Adrian to fall off her back and lose his grip on her and tickles him on sight. There's a howl of laughter emitting from Adrian.

After the little scene has ended, Ethan joins in, leaning in and grabbing them both in a large group hug.

"Rick wants some more to drink," Ethan defensively claims to Julia's unimpressed face when he takes two beers from the fridge.

"Oh god no," Her eyes widen. "That's just how it is, isn't it? He's fine and he's fine until he's naked and hugging everybody!" Everything she says is in good nature, with Ethan trying to combat her saying multiple times that he would take full responsibility for anything that Rick did that night in relation to his Alcohol tolerance.

"You will, full? It's a huge responsibility." Julia says, dubious.

"Tonight's going great," Ethan comments. Julia can't help but agree.

"It really is." They both smile and begin to pull into a kiss, to which Adrian responds by pulling a face. They're interrupted a few seconds later by one of Julia's coworkers announcing that Julia's sister had shown up.

* * *

"So here they are?" Malissa observes the two of them - Adrian and Ethan - standing side by side together in their driveway. they've just come out to greet her with Julia.

"I hope so," Ethan smiles. They can't help but all join into a light laughter. She looks at Adrian closely. It had been a few years since she'd last seen Adrian, so looking at his features, she can see how he's matured. With every passing year, Adrian seems to look like he shares more and more features with his parents.

"Well, Adrian's certainly going to be a looker when he grows up!" She bends down to Adrian's height, which was admittedly rather short for a nine-year-old, and leaned in for a hug. Malissa passes a wrapped gift to Adrian and a gift bag to Ethan. "That's the engagement gift, and for little Adrian, it's his early birthday gift, for his birthday on Monday! Can't believe you're going to hit double digits this year!"

"It feels like only yesterday when your mother walked out of the airport with you in her arms." Adrian can see out of the corner of his eyes, his mum's fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve while smiling. Fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve was one of her tells for lying. Although she hadn't said anything, maybe she was feeling guilty about being _reminded_ about a lie she once told?

Whatever it was, it was bothering Adrian and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.

* * *

"When Julia called and told me that she was getting married," Malissa began, with a happy expression. "I had just one thought, that it was just too bad that daddy wasn't here to walk her down the aisle." She starts to get teary-eyed, and somebody passes her a handkerchief, as they all listen with respectful attention to her. "Then when Julia told me that Ethan didn't have either of his parents anymore, I got really sad. But then it occurred to me, that this is about starting a new family - strengthening bonds, and how beautiful that is."

A few of the guests raised their eyebrows sceptically, looking towards Adrian with the thought that technically, Ethan and Julia had _already started_ a family.

"And I'm just saying, that I am making Julia an Aunt, so I expect the same treatment very, very soon!" The whole room's once sombre atmosphere turned joyful again, with many guests joining in an occurring laughter. They all raise champagne glasses for a toast. Adrian, not wanting to feel left out, raises his juice box up to join the toast.

He's happy that his parents are finally going to get married. He really is.


End file.
